Germany: 'Please stop playing Pokemon at Holocaust sites'

Via The Local:

German Holocaust memorials and research centres are concerned about how players are able to catch Pokemon right at sites meant to honour those murdered by the Nazis.

Pokemon Go has only been available in Germany as of sometime before noon on Wednesday and already it’s causing controversy.

The Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe told The Local that the Holocaust memorial in Berlin has been reported as a site where people could find and catch Pokemon creatures through the augmented reality game.

“This is a memorial space for the six million Jews who were murdered and it is inappropriate for this kind of game,” said foundation spokeswoman Sarah Friedrich, adding that she hoped the company would remove the memorial as a possible location.

A reporter for The Local did not find Pokemon at the Memorial for the Murdered Jews in Berlin, but did find two at the memorial for the genocide of Roma and Sinti people by the Nazis - one Diglett and one Jynx.

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Poland: Education Minister open to "other scenarios" about Polish complicity in massacre of Jews

Via Jerusalem Post:

Amid a public debate about the complicity of Poles in the murder of Jews in the Holocaust, Poland’s education minister implied that historical accounts of such atrocities are inconclusive.

In an interview Wednesday with the TVN24 network, Anna Zalewska spoke of “biased opinions” in describing Jedwabne, where on July 10, 1941, at least a few dozen Poles killed a minimum of 340 of their Jewish neighbors, according to the Polish government’s own Institute of National Remembrance. Many were burned alive in a barn.

“It is a historical record in which there have been many misunderstandings, many very biased opinions,” Zalewka, of President Andrzej Duda’s right-wing Law and Justice Party, when asked whether Poles carried out the murders. “The tragic situation that took place in Jedwabne is controversial. Many historians, eminent professors, show completely different scenarios.”

Several Polish presidents, including Duda, have acknowledged that Polish gentiles killed Polish Jews at Jedwabne, though the Institute of National Remembrance is pushing for an exhumation of the mass grave at Jedwabne to settle some questions, including some raised by the discovery of bullet shells at the scene.

Jedwabne is one of approximately 20 sites where Polish non-Jews killed a total of 1,500 to 2,500 of their Jewish neighbors during the Holocaust or directly after it, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel director, Efraim Zuroff. While complicity in the genocide occurred in Poland on a lower scale than in some of its neighboring countries, many Poles find this complicity difficult to accept because of a “deep-rooted and largely justified perception by Poles as being primarily victims during World War II,” Zuroff told JTA.

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EU chief to combat antisemitism meets with Ashrawi, whose Miftah pushes antisemitism

Elder of Ziyon reports:

The EU coordinator on combating anti-Semitism, Katharina von Schnurbein, met with one of the leading purveyors of antisemitism in the PLO, Hanan Ashrawi, where she was told that Israeli Jews are the real racists.

Yes, this really happened.

One day after a meeting in the Knesset where von Schnurbein said that she recognized that anti-Semitism often lies behind anti-Zionism, she met with Exhibit A.

And Ashrawi didn't disappoint, going on a rant about "the racist culture of hatred that is being fed by the occupying power."

It will be recalled that Ashrawi's Miftah organization had articles on its website that said that Jews eat matzoh made with Christian blood on Passover, and defended it, calling me names for exposing it, before the world media started to notice it and Miftah then "apologized" (but only in English, while the antisemitic article was in Arabic.)

After that I discovered that Miftah also questioned whether there were any Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, that it supported terror attacks and glorified suicide bombers, It also condemns any sort of programs that encourage dialogue between Palestinians and Israeli Jews as "normalization," in direct opposition to the EU which funds several such programs.

But years after I exposed these antisemitic articles, and after the US and EU continue to fund Hanan Ashrawi's Miftah, is there still antisemitism on their website?  Of course there is!

This article says "History has taught us that the culture and mentality of Judaism is a culture of complaint and accusation against the other (goyim)"

The article goes on to say that the Talmud is a racist work, but the quotes it uses to prove that actually show how the Palestinians do not want to accept Jewish history. The article quotes the Talmud as saying "Why is Israel compared to an olive tree? To learn that just as the olive tree does not lose its leaves in the summer or in the winter, so too the children of Israel will never disappear completely from this world or the next." You can see how that would be offensive!

Or similarly, a medrash that says that God compared all the cities of the world to place the Temple and He chose Jerusalem. This is another example of "Jewish racism" which in fact reveals that Palestinian Arabs refuse to accept historical facts of the Temples in Jerusalem and the Jewish nation.

Oh, and it praises Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy.

This article castigates the US for passing a bill to monitor antisemitism, saying that the Arabs are the only Semites. [...]

So, yes, the EU's official in charge of fighting antisemitism decided that it would be useful to get the perspective of someone whose organization has been responsible for spreading antisemitism. 

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Germany: Police arrest 60 people accused of internet incitement

Via Forward:

Police in 14 German states reportedly conducted raids on 60 individuals in an attempt to root out the sources of anti-Semitic and other hate postings on the internet.

The raids on Wednesday marked the first time that Germany has conducted a nationwide hunt for internet hate purveyors, according to German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, who said he hoped the operations would send a strong message that criminals cannot hide from the law in the seemingly anonymous internet.

According to German news reports, the raids followed months of observing one Facebook group that glorified National Socialism and broke German laws against promoting hate.

Suspects were accused of posting anti-Semitic, extremist and xenophobic messages, including denial of or relativizing the Holocaust, celebrating aspects of National Socialism and using Nazi symbolism, and calling for attacks on refugees and politicians. Evidence was seized at several locations.

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France: Foreign Minister meets with Hezbollah officials

Via Times of Israel:

Israel has responded with anger to a reported meeting between the French foreign minister and members of the Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah, suggesting the move was comparable to meeting with representatives of the Islamic State group.

Jean-Marc Ayrault met with a political delegation of Hezbollah in Lebanon on Tuesday, according to local media reports.

(...)

The Lebanese news site al-Joumhouria quoted “well-informed” sources who said the delegation that met with Ayrault included lawmaker Ali Fayyad, from Hezbollah’s political party Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc, as well as the head of Hezbollah’s international relations, Ammar al-Musawi.

Ayrault arrived in Lebanon Tuesday for a two-day trip in order to help the country move past the political paralysis that has prevented the election of a new Lebanese president since 2014.

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Study: Among Europeans, Greeks Have Most Negative Attitude Towards Jews

Via Algemeiner (h/t Honestly Concerned):

Among Europeans, Greeks have some of the most negative attitudes towards Jews, a new Pew Research Center study revealed on Monday.

According to the study — which analyzed the ideological divides across the EU on views about minorities, diversity and national identity, fifty-five percent of Greeks have an unfavorable view of Jews.

Hungary ranked second, with 32% of its citizens expressing negative opinions about Jews. One in five or more in Poland, Italy and Spain also have unfavorable attitudes towards Jews.

The authors of the report noted that, compared to Roma and Muslims in Europe, “Negative attitudes towards Jews are much less common” and have remained “relatively stable since 2015. Additionally, “a median of only 16 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Jews in their country.”

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UK: Anti-Semitism row breaks out during debate at Bradford City Hall

Calling for Jews to be run out of Israel is not "criticizing Israsel".  It's antisemitic incitement for ethnic cleansing of Jews from their homeland. 

That's something that's difficult for antisemites like David Ward to comprehend.  

Via Telegraph and Argus:

Bradford Council is reviewing its priorities around equalities, and Cllr Cooke had put forward a motion calling on it to consider its “awareness and response to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia”; as well as support for new migrant communities facing prejudice, challenging the demonising of white working-class communities and addressing homophobia.

Cllr Cooke told the chamber that “for the benefit of David Ward and others” he wanted to explain anti-Semitism - a reference to Cllr Ward’s past as an MP in which comments he made about Israel saw him suspended from his party.

Cllr Cooke said his son had recently brought up the Holocaust with him, saying: “My son said to me, they would have killed me and mum, wouldn’t they?”

He condemned the use of the term ‘Zio’ and said people should be alarmed by anyone calling for the Jews to be run out of Israel.

Cllr Ward responded by saying: “One thing is absolutely damn certain, he would not have been killed by a Palestinian.”

To cries of ‘shame’ from some councillors and applause from others, Cllr Ward said: “Palestinians have children, many of whom have been slaughtered by the state of Israel.”

He said it was not anti-Semitic to criticise Israel and that it was “completely wrong to use the Holocaust” to protect Israel from criticism. 

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Ireland: Betty Purcell trenchantly advocating against Israel in the mainstream media

A must read article by Robert Harris @ New English Review: A Comprehensive Response to Anti-Israel Tourist Activism Talking Points, Part I:

Betty Purcell, a member of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, is best known for her former role as a current affairs producer at RTE, Ireland’s public service broadcaster. Purcell is a television producer of longstanding, who wrote a book called Inside RTÉ: A Memoir about her thirty-three year career at the Broadcasting institution, which indicated the extent to which she influenced RTE’s political culture.

Purcell trenchantly advocated against the Jewish State in the mainstream media, in the aftermath of a supposed fact-finding tour of Judea and Samaria/West Bank, organised by the Bethlehem branch of the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association). Purcell’s staunch anti-Zionist claims, as expressed in an Irish Examiner article, letters, and during an RTE interview, echo most of the normative propagandistic talking points found when anti-Israel tourism activists share their insights with the international media. This article uses Purcell’s commentary as a starting point to closely critique these broad talking points.

On November 2^nd, 2015, the Irish Examiner published an opinion piece by Betty Purcell, entitled ‘A boycott of Israel can help end the injustice’.

Purcell’s screed begins with a description of the appearance of a field of olive trees, near Bethlehem:

“It should be an idyllic scene. But we are with the farmer who owns the field, and his story is tragic.”

Purcell does not name the farmer and his family, upon which several of her claims are based. The absence of an identifying source for Purcell’s claims soon becomes significant. Of the farmer, it is said:

“Coming down the hill towards him is a massive Israeli settlement (illegal under international law, and condemned by the International Court of Justice in 2004).  It has already led to the confiscation of half of his land.”

Numerous invalid claims have been made in the media about the confiscation of land and property that was supposedly owned by Arab-Palestinians. Purcell does not even deem it necessary to name the area where the farmer lives, but it appears to be near the security barrier, in the environs of Bethlehem. It is difficult to deduce the “massive” Jewish settlement that Purcell references. It might be Efrat, or the neighbourhood of Gilo, which Purcell may deem a settlement but it is merely a suburb of East Jerusalem. Purcell describes this settlement as almost a living thing, coming after the unfortunate farmer, but these urban centres typically develop inward rather than outward, and do so at a relatively slow pace due to the controversy that such developments garner internationally. [...]

When naming the security barrier the “Separation Wall”, Purcell demonstrates a clear propagandistic intent. The term evokes the notion of apartheid and negates the historic circumstance in which the development occurred, namely the Second Intifada, in which the civilian Israeli populace was subjected to approximately four years of terrorism, that largely originated in Judea and Samaria/West Bank. It led to the death of nearly a thousand Israelis, the majority of which were Jewish civilians, along with many thousands of non-fatal casualties.

Purcell’s article introduced a rather extraordinary claim:

“The Wall is built in the West Bank, and when it is completed will annex a further 47% of West Bank territory.”

This claim was challenged by a representative of Dublin’s Israeli Embassy:

“Ms Purcell states that the separation wall, when it is completed, will gobble up 47% of Palestinian territory. This is a lie; the wall is expected to take up about nine per cent of the territory. Ms Purcell does not explain why it was built in the first place: to keep potential terrorists out of Israel.”

However, Purcell stood by the charge in a letter of response:

“…there are varying estimates as to the amount of West Bank land the Separation Wall will seize. The YMCA for instance predicts the incursion will be 47%.”

If there are varying estimates, then why did Purcell choose to go with the most extreme estimate in her article? Purcell’s 47% claim is so absurd that the reader might be forgiven for thinking that she has never seen a map of Judea and Samaria/West Bank!

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UK: CAA evidence team made to leave Hizballah rally in London

Via CAA:

A march in support of genocidal antisemitic terrorist group Hizballah went ahead in London on Sunday, after Campaign Against Antisemitism’s talks with the Metropolitan Police Service and the Crown Prosecution Service failed.

Hundreds of demonstrators festooned themselves and their children with Hizballah flags, and then marched through the streets of the capital in support of the terrorist group which strives for the annihilation of Jews worldwide and has perpetrated terrorist attacks against Jewish targets around the world for decades.

Members of our evidence team were made to leave for asking demonstrators about Hizballah’s policy of murdering Jews, whilst the demonstrators paraded in front of police officers with printed placards reading “We are all Hizbullah [sic]”, as they have done in previous years.

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Germany: Memorial of Jewish writers vandalized

Via CFCA: 

In ‪‎Cologne unknown perpetrators smudged the plague in honor of the Jewish author Peter Finkelgrün and in memory of his grandfather Martin Finkelgrün, who was murdered in the concentration camp Theresienstadt.

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Europe's goodwill ambassador tweets antisemitic list of British MPs who supported Iraq War

This is the graphic at the very top of the neo-Nazi article in question.  No wonder Bianca Jagger did not realize this was a neo-Nazi site - accusing 'Zionists' of all world evil is common among 'human rights' activists. 

Via Times of Israel:

Bianca Jagger, a human rights activist and ex-wife of Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger, apologized for tweeting a link to a neo-Nazi website and later said she was “mortified.”

Jagger tweeted the link, which includes a list of British lawmakers who voted for the Iraq War, early Tuesday to her 54,000 followers. The tweet said “List of UK #MPs who voted for #IraqWar – Please read it carefully, understand why they want @jeremycorbyn out.”

The list was on the Metapedia website, which was founded by a Swedish neo-Nazi in 2006 and describes itself as an “alternative encyclopaedia.”

In addition to saying how each lawmaker voted, the list includes a notes section in which they are each identified by descriptions such as “Jewess,” “Connected to Labour Friends of Israel,” “married to Jew,” “openly homosexual,” “Negro” or “Negress.”

(...)

Jagger tweeted an apology two hours later after her first post, which had been set to automatically retweet.

“I’m terribly sorry for posting a despicable tweet by mistake, I posted it at 4.15 in the morning and didn’t properly read its content,” the tweet said.

Jagger, 71, runs the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation and also serves as a Council of Europe goodwill ambassador.

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Greece: Anarchists protest against "Mossad agents" at Athens airport

Via Kathimerini (h/t glykosymoritis):

Police early on Wednesday detained 10 suspected members of the anarchist group Rouvikonas – the Greek name for Rubicon – who barged into the departures area of Athens International Airport and started shouting slogans near the check-in desks of Israeli airline El Al.

The protesters shouted "No to the agents of Mossad" and "No tolerance to the bullying of Mossad" as travelers were waiting to check in to their flight.

In a posting online, members of Rouvikanos said they had staged the protest because last month a Colombian who was returned to Spain with his family was beaten by security staff working for an Israeli airline at Athens International Airport because he was considered suspicious.

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France: The rise of Saint-Denis France means the flight of the Jews

Ben Judah @ Standpoint: Islam and the French Republic:

[...] I sit at the back of a normal banlieue classroom. Bits of plastic and dust balls fleck the floor. Fifteen-year-olds yell and shriek. There are 28 of them: eight of them white, the rest black or Arab, and only one without an immigrant background. They don’t know it, but they are about to experience Coexist, a volunteer anti-racist project.

The class is divided into four groups and handed blank sheets of paper marked with black headings: French, Blacks, Arabs, Jews, Muslims, Men and Women. The children are then told to fill in whatever words come into their heads. A group of eight fill in what comes into their heads for French. This is what they wrote: whites, whites, France, whites, whites, French blood, whites, born in France.

“The French, it’s them,” says a black boy pointing at a white one. “The French, they’re not us,” says an Arab girl. “To be French,” says an Arab boy, “you have to have all your family French, all of them back to . . . the start of humanity.” Almost all of them were born in this banlieue.

Mohammed, a cheeky boy with a brutal undercut, is asked to come to the blackboard to read out what his group wrote for Jew. He also presents a picture they drew for it.

“Jews ✡ = Sons of Bitches = $”

Why did you draw a dollar sign, asks the instructor?

“Because they are all rich, they all used to be bankers, in the Middle Ages or something. So they have an inheritance. And they stick together.”

One girl laughs. “So we can take it from them.”

“What is the Shoah?” says a confused black girl. “Is it a drug?”[...]

I have driven round Le Périphérique, the orbital motorway that divides Paris from the banlieues, to ask her a Jewish question. Can a Jew still live safely in a banlieue?

“A Jew can’t live where he wants anymore,” says Mme Saada. “Bit by bit, everyone is moving from the banlieues. As soon as there are ethnic populations, and as soon as it gets, shall we say, problematic, the Jews move. The visible ones — they get constantly attacked.”

The rise of Saint-Denis France means the flight of the Jews. Since 2000, when banlieue anti-Semitism began to flare alongside the Palestinian intifada, the number of Jewish families in Aulnay-sous-Bois fell from 600 to 100, in Le Blanc-Mesnil from 300 to 100, in Clichy-Sous-Bois from 400 to 80, and in La Courneuve from 300 to 80. French Jews call this flight internal aliyah.

This is why they move: in 2014, 51 per cent of reported racist incidents in France targeted Jews. On average a Jew is assaulted in France every day. And this means it touches most families. A recent poll found that 74 per cent of Jews who wore traditional skullcaps and 20 per cent who didn’t reported being attacked.

Madame Saada’s community is a refuge: in 2000 it was 800 families strong, now internal aliyah has enlarged it to 1,500. This crush makes the synagogue feel more like a home than a place of worship. And, like so many things Jewish, it is a cacophonic mess: someone is looking for a tennis racket, a flotilla of pastry boxes seems to be arriving, and the rabbi is nowhere to be seen. It seems so similar to Jewish life in London — but then 20 soldiers arrive. “I’m the next guard,” booms a tall white trooper with a buzz cut.

Since the jihadi slaughter at the HyperCacher after the Charlie Hebdo attack last year, 10,000 troops and 5,000 police have guarded all Jewish sites in France. The military has been brought in because there are now so many potential jihadist cells and lone wolves in the banlieue that there is simply no other way to protect them.

Mme Saada looks at the troops. Every day she sees the uniforms and feels amazingly thankful and amazingly sad. It has come to this: that the Jews are, once again, so hated that they need the army patrolling their every building to keep them safe. It feels, almost, like a return to the Middle Ages, when the Jews were protected by the prince and would avoid those areas where the writ of their sovereign was weakest. French Jews with a sense of humour joke about their protector as le Prince Valls, Prime Minister Manuel Valls, and how they avoid banlieues where his rule is weak.

“It’s traumatic, claustrophobic, to live every day,” she says, “with soldiers, seeing we are so hated we can’t be here without them. It’s particularly awful at the school gates, thinking that without the army our children would come home dead.” Many pious ones, who, praying daily, almost live in the synagogue, really struggle. At least in Israel the soldiers are not at the door. [...]


Mme Saada is growing old, but her eyes are wide brown. “This future frightens us. We’re being marginalised.” Three children have moved to Israel, two to New York. Only one is left in Paris. “We didn’t even get one full generation in France.”

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Read also about this subject: France: Jews fleeing antisemitism become internal refugees

Belgium: Politician believes real ISIS boss is a Jew and Mossad agent named Simon Eliott

Mohamed Reghif (Facebook)

The Belgian League Against Antisemitim and DH newspaper report that Mohamed Reghif, a Brussels local councillor (Schaerbeek district), was urged by his party (Défi, centre right) to take down antisemitic material from his Facebook account - some of it dating as far back as 2012.

Mr. Reghif believes in antisemitic conspiracy theories.  For him, ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a Jew and a Mossad agent.  His real name is Simon Eliott.

He also posted that an Israeli had been arrested in Bordeaux for being an ISIS recruiting agent and sending combattants to Syria.  He added:  "Look, look, who is really behind the recruitment of idle youths?"
 
He also posted a "Jews-behind" type theory on the Burgas (Bulgaria) bus bombing terrorist attack against Israeli toursits. He equally accused the United States of paying Muslims to perpetrate terrorist attacks.

On his Facebook page, Mr. Reghif describes himself as being "dynamic, ambitious, committed, open to dialogue, and stimulated by complex challenges".

It is understood that the party will carry out an internal review, but most likely the matter will rest there and no further action will be taken. 

To understand this type of mindset among Muslims read: Palestinian Imam celebrated by Church of Sweden: "The Jews are behind the Islamic State!"

Germany: News network accuses Israel of teaching children to murder Palestinians

Via Ynet News:

A documentary titled 'teaching to hate?' will be broadcasted on German mainstream network ZDF. The documentary aims to show how children are educated to kill, and makes comparisons between the Palestinian education systems and Israeli education systems.

An advertisement for a German television documentary which will deal with how children in the Palestinian Authority are taught to hate and kill has caused an uproar for claiming that Israeli children are also taught to hate and kill Palestinians.

 The program will be aired on ZDF, a German television channel which is known for its anti-Israel slant.

The ad for the documentary, titled "teaching to hate?" asks the question "how do Israeli and Palestinian children learn to despise one another – and kill?"
The documentary makes the comparison between incitement to murder and hatred in Palestinian schools to the education and incitemetn to hatred which Israeli children alleged receive. This, despite the fact that the documentary clearly and explicitly proves that the education systems which spread incitement to kill and to hate is on the Palestinian side only.

While the documentary doesn't claim that the Israeli education system teaches children to kill Arabs, it does say that Arabs are presented in a negative light in Israeli textbooks. An example of this "racist education" against the Arab population is that the majority of Israeli students, when drawing a picture of an Arab, draw the Arab sitting on a camel.

Following a wave of protests directed at ZDF, the station pulled the anti-Israel ad and ran an apology ad, saying "the wording of the documentary has caused misunderstandings. If someone was hurt by the wording, we ask for their forgiveness." 

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